Current position
Key legislation
What employers must do
Implications
Issues
Shared learning
More information
Discrimination against a disabled person in terms of their employment covers promotion opportunities, dismissals, or subjecting them to any other detriment. It is also illegal to discriminate by refusing to provide a disabled person with a service that is available to everyone else, to offer services on different terms, or to fail to make reasonable adjustments to allow access to services.
Public authorities also have a positive duty to promote disability equality.
The Disability Discrimination Act (2005) built on the DDA 1995 by extending these rights to those with HIV, multiple sclerosis (MS) and cancer. It also introduced a positive duty on public bodies in 2006 to promote equality for disabled people. The definition of a disabled person used in the DDA 2005 now covers a wider range of people than in the 1995 Act:
- anyone diagnosed with a progressive condition such as cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis, whether or not they are showing signs of their illness
- people with severe disfigurements and 'hidden' disabilities like dyslexia and epilepsy, depending upon the severity of the impairment
- people who have severe back pain or arthritis, if it impairs their ability to do normal activities
- those who have had a disability in the past, even if they have recovered, for example those who have had episodes of mental ill health.
In addition, those with mental ill health conditions are required to submit only the same proof - substantial and long term - as those with a physical impairment
- Ensure that recruitment and employment policies and practices have been assessed for any disadvantages to disabled staff and job seekers and that, where identified, reasonable adjustments have been made to mitigate them.
- Develop and publish a disability equality scheme (DES) and action plan (individually, or as focussed part of a single equality scheme) by December 2006, to be updated every 3 years.
- Publish an annual report setting out progress in promoting disability equality.
- Undertake disability equality impact assessments of all policies functions and procedures.
- Record and analyse monitoring data to assess the effect of changes in policy and practice e.g. monitoring of recruitment processes, appraisal rates, grievances and disciplinaries.
- Involve disabled people in consultations on strategies and major policies.
There is also a recommendation to publish monitoring data and the results of impact assessments. Those employers with more than 150 employees need to collect data on disabled staff who:
- receive training
- benefit or suffer detriment as a result of performance assessment procedures
- are involved in disciplinary and grievance procedures
The 1995 DDA introduced the concept of “reasonable adjustments” which employers and service providers must now take to ensure that disabled service users and employees are not unfairly disadvantaged. These might include changes to policies or procedures, or the introduction of new equipment, or physical changes to premises.
The Disability Equality Duty (DED) introduced in the 2005 DDA sets out very clear additional steps that all public authorities must take to ensure that they do not discriminate against disabled people when providing services or employment. Failure to comply could result in a Compliance Notice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Other implications of non-compliance include:
- losing the use if the “two ticks” disability symbol given by Jobcentre Plus if practice is poor
- damage to the reputation of the organisation as an equal opportunities employer
- increased costs – sometimes it is more costly to put things right, rather than ensuring systems meet people’s needs in the first place.
The latest legislation maintains an essentially medical model for the definition of ‘disabled’ i.e., “a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”. This has been criticised by some disability support groups as too limited because it adopts the perspective of a healthcare professional toward the disabled person as a subject.
An alternative “social model” favours viewing the environment, or society, as imposing barriers on disabled people, often excluding them from participation in aspects of life freely available to others. The emphasis on ‘reasonable adjustments’ in the early legislation goes some way towards recognising that sometimes physical and / or procedural barriers to disabled people gaining access to services and employment opportunities might indeed be artificial and unnecessary and should be removed or circumvented, even where there is a cost involved.
Shared learning
Some examples of good practice on disability equality can be found in our shared learning web pages including:
- Plymouth Teaching Primary Care Trust (PCT) - the PCT developed a new job role of 'development officer' to help people with disabilities to gain a greater access to, and quality of, services
- South Birmingham PCT - the trust consulted people with learning disabilities before producing an easy-to-read disability equality scheme More information